Frédéric d’Oria-Nicolas here offers Schubert which
isn’t quite as interesting as the soloist’s own name. The piano
sonata D960 is the big work, but it suffers from
d’Oria-Nicolas’s habit of constantly inserting cutesy little
pauses. The first one is within the first few seconds; then they appear
virtually by the minute through the rest of the album. Remember how, in
Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, Michael Palin’s silly walk was
a regular walk where he occasionally paused mid-stride? That is the best
analogy I can think of. That, or imagine the exact opposite of
Tourette’s: spontaneous, uncontrollable bursts of silence.

This habit is not the only strike against the album. A slightly
glassy, colourless piano pickup does not help; I do not know whether to
blame the performer or the label, although Fondamenta recently released an
excellently engineered piano recital of Chopin. That was recorded four years
later; probably they’ve learned. Even if the sound were good, and even
if those darn pauses weren’t sprayed like shotgun pellets across
Schubert’s score, I still wouldn’t fully agree with
d’Oria-Nicolas’s vision of the piece. The first movement is slow
and draggy, and the scherzo doesn’t have the fragile glittery quality
some of my favourite performers - Lupu, Lazic, Endres - can bring.

There’s plenty of room for unusual or eccentric
interpretations of this sonata. If you love this piece and want to stimulate
your brain with a recent recording that casts the work in a new light, try
Edward Rosser instead. If you have a burning need for
the name d’Oria-Nicolas in your collection, consider saving money by
downloading the Schubert/Liszt song encores by themselves. They absorb the
performer’s personality better.